


Unprepared

by megancrtr



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Gen, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 18:45:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17028033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megancrtr/pseuds/megancrtr
Summary: The NHL wasn’t ready for Kent Parson. They weren’t ready for a woman to be their generational player. They weren’t ready for her passion and her poise. They weren’t ready for her fast hands and faster feet. The NHL wasn’t ready when it drafted her.





	Unprepared

—

Janice interviews Kent Parson for the New York Times the first time when Kent is 16. It’s 15 years exactly to the day when Manon Rhéaume made history and signed as the first woman in Major Juniors. Kent isn’t the second or even the third to play in Major Juniors, but she’s the first American.

Janice fought tooth and nail for the interview, calling in favors everywhere she could from Sam Martin, the dickbag who still owes her seven, to sweet Neha Thind, before she got the promise from Kent’s agent: Janice would get the exclusive on Kent (and the first interview with her) after Kent became a Rimouski player.

It took another battle for Janice to wheedle 2,500 words of print and most of the first page of the sports section from Mark.

Janice is ecstatic, to say the least.

“So,” Janice says, clicking on her recorder, “how does it feel?”

Kent grins unabashedly. She makes a comment about how great of an honor it is, but then she says, “I’m feeling a bit vindicated.”

Janice raises her eyebrows at her pad of paper, scribbling across it. Janice doesn’t say a word, and Kent barely pauses as she fills the silence, giddy with excitement. “I worked hard to make sure they couldn’t not pick me. When you’re the best in the world, there’s no other choice.”

Janice glances up at Kent and her wolfish grin. She painted her lips dark red with lipstick, eyeliner accentuating her already sharp gaze, blush pushing color into her white skin. Kent’s pale blond hair is ironed flat, and she emits confidence in the lift of her chin, the sprawl of her body.

“You don’t think you’re overconfident?” Janice asks evenly, as if she isn’t biting back her matching excitement for this moment, for Kent making history.

Kent laughs. “If I wasn’t confident in my play, no one would taken me seriously.”

Janice hums to keep from grinning and follows up, “Do they?”

“Do they what?”  
  
“Take you seriously?”

Kent’s blue eyes flash green for the barest moment. “If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have signed me.”

Janice nods, and she glances over her questions, Kent fidgeting in the moment. “Do you think the NHL will take you seriously?”

“They’re going to watch me play,” Kent says, “and they won’t have a choice.”

“To take you seriously?”

“To draft me.”

“To draft you?”

“It’s two years away, but I’m playing the long game.”

—

Janice watches Kent play the long game. She watches Kent rack up points and circle closer and closer to a certain Jack Zimmermann. In Janice’s opinion, which she regards quite highly, Jack has a long way to go to catch up with Kent, who knows she’s the best and doesn’t hide it. Kent can skate circles around Jack, her footwork tighter, quicker, more unpredictable. She doesn’t need to check players, she avoids them, she makes them run into the board themselves.

Now, people call Kent a coward, but in the long run (in the NHL long game), it means Kent will suffer fewer injuries, fewer slowdowns. It means her career will last longer, and she’ll be a more valuable player to her team. It makes her play breathtaking instead of heart stopping, the decades of possibilities condensed sharply and deliberately into each move she makes—and Jack can’t even compete. Not in Janice’s eyes.

But few other reporters care what Janice thinks. They talk about Kent and Jack as if they’re equals—the Zimmermann-Parson pair.

It’s outrageous.

But Kent knows her worth, and she doesn’t hold back in her interviews: Kent shamelessly boasts and baits the beat reporters who don’t know what to do with a cocky woman who deserves her place and sings her own praises. To compensate, they berate her character, and they write about how she frequents parties, remissing to comment on how Jack matches Kent drink for drink every step of the way or how the rest of the team trails closely behind.

When Janice doesn’t think the media can sensationalize nothing any longer, there’s a piece about the state of Kent’s virginity. Janice sees red at it. In her entire life, 37 long years of it, Janice has never read a single piece about the state of a male hockey player’s virginity. It wasn’t even discussed in articles that speculated whether or not a player was or was not a father of a child. No one would give a shit if Kent was male! Janice’s anger flares bright, hot—but then it fades, and Janice realizes the piece doesn’t actually come as a surprise to her.

She is equally unsurprised, despite begrudgingly written reports about teammates looking up to Kent, when the team names Jack captain and Kent second.  
  
A few days after the captaincy announcement, Janice and Kent sit down. Janice only gets 1,000 words this time, Mark finally coughing up the space after Janice petitioned three months for the article on whatever the outcome of the capitancy was going to be, calling in the Sheena from the diversity department for the assist.

After a few pleasantries, Janice clicks on her recorder and asks Kent, “As the best player on the ice in all of Major Juniors, how does it feel for your team to name you second best?”

Kent opens her mouth, and then immediately snaps it shut. Janice waits, letting the question hang, and it’s a long time before Kent finally answers it. “Being captain isn’t about being the best player on the ice,” Kent finally says. “It’s about leadership.” Janice makes a note about the measured tone of Kent’s words, said slowly, each word carefully reviewed for quality before given. 

“As a follow up to that then,” Janice says and then does not ask if Kent’s words means she thinks she’s the best player; instead, Janice asks, “Do you think Jack’s a good leader?”

Kent doesn’t speak, staring down at her nails painted the dark blue of Rimouski. Kent rubs the pads of her fingers over the color, not picking at the polish but obviously wanting to. Janice keeps her mouth shut, knowing Kent will eventually fill the silence, as she’s always done. Janice wonders if someone has been giving Kent media training, coaching her on how to approach questions like these or if she has simply matured on her own. The well-deserved ego Janice knows the teenager hoards is held back, pushing at her seams but not bursting as it was last year.

When Kent finally responds, she provides the non-answer Janice has disgustingly started to expect from all hockey players. “Leadership is a lot of responsibility, and Jack is good at taking on responsibility.”

“You don’t think you’re responsible?”

Kent snaps. “I never said that.”

Janice hmms and jots Kent’s words down. When she looks up, Kent clenches her jaw. Janice glances down at her notes, waiting, and Kent fills the silence, uncomfortable waiting in it. “Jack’s a great guy. He knows a lot about hockey.”

“You aren’t mad?”

“Of course I’m mad!” Kent shouts. She immediately freezes. “Off the record,” she chokes out.

Janice shakes her head. “You have to say off the record, and I have to agree to it before you say anything.”

Kent flushes, scowling. Janice can’t see Kent’s skin under her thick foundation, but Janice would bet anything Kent’s actual complex is the blotchy red it becomes on the ice, running down the back of her neck.

Janice sighs. “Off the record,” she says, and Kent perks up. “I’m fucking pissed off, too.”

“If I had a dick,” Kent spits vehemently, “I would’ve been captain.”

Janice can’t help nodding along. It’s true. “If you had a dick,” she adds, “there would be no doubt you’d go first.”

“Jack’s gonna.”

“You’re the better player,” Janice counters, and then they smile ruefully at one another, because they both know how male-dominated fields operate. Janice doesn’t doubt Kent should go first—Janice doubts she’s going to get it. And Kent knows that, too.

—

Janice has been preparing her draft-day profile of Kent for months, rewriting and polishing every section until even Mark claimed it gleamed with perfection. There are two versions ready to go: Kent goes first, and Kent doesn’t go first. Personally, Janice hopes for the first but anticipates the second.

All the final profile needs is a quote from Kent after the NHL drafts her, and Janice is ready to get it. She has her press corps badge for the day and arrived plenty early to try and suck up to Joyce Summers, who reviews and handles all media requests for newly drafted players with an iron fist and a conspiracy level of skepticism.

“Joyce,” Janice says with her biggest smile, and Joyce rolls her eyes. “Coffee?”

Joyce might quirk a smile. “Aiming for a cup from the players lounge?”

“They have the best office,” Janice says unabashedly. “I know it. You know it, we all know it. But press can’t get in there. So…” Janice trails off and two seconds later, Joyce starts walking toward the players lounge, Janice right on her heels and a grin spreading across her face. Last year, Janice almost got Tyler Travis to bring her out a cup before he got distracted. 

Janice gratefully takes her illicit coffee from Joyce and begins chatting her up about the draft player storyline she has going, when Joyce’s phone rings. Joyce glances down, frowns, and then holds up her finger. Janice switches mid-sentence.

“Who is—”

“Boss man,” Joyce says and then answers. She doesn’t start off by saying, “Dickwad, why are you calling,” but Janice thinks Joyce’s voice conveys the sentiment rather well. Not a moment later Joyce’s eyebrows slide downward. “What do you mean Zimmermann can’t make it?” Joyce meets Janice’s eyes and Joyce is halfway to rolling her own when she freezes. Her eyes shoot far left to where the draftee jersey’s are stacked for safe keeping. “In the hospital?

Janice feels her heart skip a beat. She makes a guess, “Jack was in an ambulance?” Joyce steps away, waving Janice goodbye. Janice doesn’t let her, matching Joyce step for step. Janice didn’t become a journalist because she went away when people told her to.

Suddenly, Joyce’s face turns stormy, and Janice is pretty sure she fucked up, but the words Joyce spits out are directed into the phone, “In the middle of the night? Where’s—right. Parson is still… I don’t know. You find her! I know they’re dating,” Joyce grinds out, and then she snaps her neck to stare at Janice. “You’re like a vulture. Shoo.”

Janice blinks away any feeling of offense as second-nature. “So Zimmermann is in the hospital and no one knows where Parson is?”

Joyce covers the mouthpiece on the phone. “Go fuck off until we make an official statement.”

“So when are you giving a statement then? And where? You could do it here, right now, and—”

“Later. We’ll make a statement later, and I’ll be sure someone gets you from wherever you fuck off to before we give it.”

Janice nods sharply. “Send them to the hospital.” Janice waits with a grin to watch Joyce choke in horror, and then hurries the fuck away. She beelines to the nearest pay phone, and it takes three rings before Mark picks up. “Editor,” he says, and a lot of words tumble out of Janice’s mouth all at once.

“Jack Zimmermann is in the hospital. I don’t know which one, but no one can locate Kent Parson either. I don’t know for sure Jack was transported via an ambulance, but if he was then there was likely a 911 call. We can probably file for the call’s release as long as we know the timing. Likely sometime last night, but I don’t know a better timeline and—”

“We’re going to have to scrap your profiles.”

Janice frowns. Her beautiful, gleaming, perfect profiles achingly, lovingly worked on since Kent hoisted the Memorial Cup, patiently waiting for a quote from Kent. “I hate you so much.”

Mark scoffs. “I’ll make some calls,” he says. “Suzy’s in the area working on a restaurant profile, so she can probably help you out with the groundwork. Her editor owes me one, but I don’t want you leaving the—”

Janice hangs up because she can do her own job. Suzy can get the first responder call, work out the background details, figure out the timeline. And Janice… Janice needs to pound the pavement and see what she can scrounge up. She’s hoping for a quote or two at the very least. Some of the more anxious players are starting to arrive, and they might include one or two Rimouski players. If Janice remembers correctly, a beat reporter once mentioned how Timmy liked to show up early to everything. So all Janice needs to do is find—

Kent Parson.

For a moment Janice can’t move, torn between hurrying closer and running away. Because if by some miracle Kent speaks with Janice, Janice is going to utterly destroy any and all goodwill she’s built with Joyce over the years. On the other hand. If Kent gives Janice a quote, Janice is going to get a front page byline again. It’ll be the biggest scoop in hockey history, and Mark is going to love her forever.

Kent glances at Janice, and that’s it. Janice can’t help walking closer. Kent looks fine. She doesn’t look like Jack’s in the hospital.

“Hi,” Janice says. “I’m Janice. We spoke a few times—”

“New York Times,” Kent says and bobs her head in a nod a couple of times. Her eyes cast somewhere off to the right of Janice, and Janice finds herself consciously trying to lean into Kent’s line of vision. Kent’s eyes snap to Janice, as if catching her movement. The hockey player’s eyes harden. “Off the record.”

Janice doesn’t flush with embarrassment, but it’s a close thing. “Right, yeah, I gave you that advice and—”

Kent cuts her off. “I’m not talking with you unless you agree to everything being off the record.”

Janice snaps her wide open mouth shut. “You want to talk?”

Kent flushes, glancing away, and Janice realizes Kent doesn’t look… right. Janice peers closer, taking a step as she does so, and Kent hesitantly leans backward. Janice watches red move into Kent’s cheeks and line her throat in splotchy patches. Janice’s eyes narrow. Kent isn’t wearing foundation. Kent has on lipstick and mascara and eyeliner, but otherwise her skin is clear as it only ever is when Kent shuffles into the locker room immediately after a game, hair damp and curling at the ends. “I want to talk off the record,” Kent says, eyes skirting from Janice’s face to behind her, to others beginning to fill up the halls, obviously trying to fight down the red in her skin, trying to look inconspicuous.

“The story is going to get told anyway,” Janice blurts out, which might not be the nicest move or Janice’s smartest one. But. It’s the truth. “I heard the head of NHL PR talking, and you can either tell the story to me on the record or you can have reporters dig and dig and speculate and demand the government release the 911 call, which we’re already doing anyway, and—” Janice cuts herself off. She shakes her head. Kent looks like a deer in headlights.

“Listen,” Janice says softer and refrains, just barely, from reaching out. “I’m not your agent, but if you go and talk to him, he’s going to have you sit tight for hours while he crafts some shitty statement that says nothing at all. And you’re going to have this story following you for the rest of the summer, into preseason, into your first season, until you blow up on reporters, who have ruthlessly asked you about this, after practice, before games, after games, during media events. You’ll snap. Say something you regret. The story will haunt you forever, your team labeling you a liability, trading you. You’re going to get more stigmatized, more ostracized than you already are. You’re going to get way less money than you deserve, than you're worth.”

Kent doesn’t look at Janice. “But if you talk to me,” Janice coaxes, “on the record, it’ll be your side of the story. It’ll be whatever you want to say.”

Janice watches Kent start to nod. It’s hesitant, slow, but it’s there, her eyes refocusing on Janice’s.

“I’ll have to add background, give the story context, talk to some other sources, but I’m not going to twist your words. You’ve read my work. I’m not going to throw you under the bus, and I’m going to do my research into what happened, but I don’t want you to—”

“I’m going to go first,” Kent interrupts. She looks shocked.

“I like the confidence, but—”

“Jack’s dad pulled him out of the draft.” Kent's eyes snap to Janice's face, clearer than before. She juts her chin up. “On the record, Jack isn’t going to be in the draft. Las Vegas doesn’t have a choice anymore except to pick me.”

—

Janice watches Kent battle hard: for the puck, for her team, for herself.

Janice watches the NHL struggle to keep up. They have a policy in place for racist language on the ice, but they don’t have anything for sexist, so they don’t suspend Kent’s teammate. They don’t trade him.

Janice presses for Mark to give her the story to do, and he does, but then Janice can’t get Kent to talk to her. Her agent, a dimtwit named Kevin Henry, refuses every interview request. Janice can’t even get fucking press credentials for the locker room which is bullshit on every level. Eventually, Kevin gives her a statement from Kent. It reads, “The Aces support me, and I support them.”

When Mark reads it, he gawuffs. “We’ll have Danny get the quote.”

Janice shakes her head and wonders how much longer she’d get banned from the Aces’s locker room if she jumped Kent going to or from practice for the quote. Janice doesn’t think Kent would be upset. The draft story Janice wrote was good, solid. It didn’t rake Kent or Jack over the coals as other media did, but it was anything but flattering to the NHL as an organization. Janice played the blame game and pointed all the fingers she could at the NHL and the Q: underaged drinking, unrealistic expectations, desolate support network.

No, reaching out to Kent directly for a quote wouldn’t make Kent upset, but it would piss the Aces off to see Kent quoted in another of Janice’s stories, especially when Janice didn’t go through proper channels. Especially because the story definitely wouldn’t be kind to the Aces. Can’t even properly penalize a sexist teammate.

“Look,” Mark continues. “We need a quote from her, a good quote. Danny can get it.”

Janice scowls. “Danny’s a guy,” Janice says, and Mark doesn’t understand at all.

Mark takes the story away from Janice and assigns Danny to it—the Aces set an interview time for Danny and Kent the next day.

Kent’s quote, Janice feels vindicated to see, is shit.

—

Kent lifts the Stanley Cup not six months later, and Janice refuses to let Mark send fucking Danny. In the locker room, Janice ducks champagne, and she watches Kent plant kiss after kiss on her teammates, unconcerned about the videos recording and cameras flashing. Sometimes there’s tongue, other times there’s teeth. Kent drinks from the Cup, teammates holding it up for her. The alcohol splashes down her front, even though she’s underaged, and she steps back laughing.

Kent’s eyes light upon Janice, and Kent’s smile doesn’t fade. It grows. She elbows aside one teammate, another, ducks under a reporter, and then Janice and Kent are front to front in the overcrowded locker room.

“Woman of the hour,” Janice says in greeting.

“I told you!” Kent shouts. Her arms brandish out and knock a camera sideways. The cameraman can’t even give Kent a dirty look, not with the absolute ecstasy vibrating through her body.

“The long game,” Janice agrees. Kent’s eyes sparkle, and for a moment, it’s only her and Kent in the entire locker room. Janice and this generational player. Fire burns in Kent’s eyes and through her soul. Every single moment, good and bad, stoking it.

The NHL, Janice realizes, weren’t ready for a woman to be their generational player. They weren’t ready for her passion and her poise. They weren’t ready for her fast hands and faster feet. The NHL wasn’t ready when it drafted her.

“Do you think Jack could’ve done this?” Kent asks, and Janice jerks into the present.

“I’m sorry?”

“Jack…” Kent doesn’t say anything more, motioning around herself, to the Stanley Cup.

“No,” Janice says fiercely, wondering where this is coming from and whether this should be something she includes in the story. “No,” Janice repeats, and then she takes control of the interview before someone interrupts them, “How did you do it?”

“Do what?” Kent asks.

Janice laughs and motions around her. “You single-handedly brought the Aces the Stanley Cup.”

“Oh,” Kent says, and then a smile bursts onto her face. “I did, didn’t I?” She glows in that statement, and then she hurries on. “Of course not all on my own. Team effort.” But there’s a twinkle in her eye, and Janice knows neither of them entirely believes that sentence.

—

Not a single woman gets drafted that summer. Kent’s still the only woman in the NHL.

Kent throws a birthday bash where she and the Stanley Cup are the stars. Kent drinks herself into a black out that day, and then Kent keeps drinking.

The summer moves quickly, and Janice watches as Kent appears and then disappears from the news cycle. She shows up for bouts in the tabloids, caught in late-night drinking binges, stripping with other girls on the Strip, running her mouth, getting into violent, bloody fights.

Mark calls Janice into his office. They stare across each other for a bit, and then Mark says, “I thought you’d be begging me already to do the piece on Kent.”

“There’s no story there,” Janice says.

Mark scoffs. “Of course there is. She won the Stanley Cup, is feeling the pressure to perform again, and is going off the deep end. Just like her boyfriend did.”

Janice purses her lips. “It’s a story for Deadspin. And there’s no way I’m getting access to her on it. To any of the players, her friends.”

Mark eyes her, crosses his arms. “You can’t only be the good-guy reporter. When she’s doing something stupid but newsworthy, you have to report on that, too.”

“I know, but—”

“I’m assigning the story to you.” Janice opens her mouth to protest, and Mark hurries on, “Or Danny gets to cover the next Stanley Cup she wins.”  
  
Janice narrows her eyes. “Kent’s going to win another two at least.”

Mark counters, “He’ll get to cover that one too then.” So Janice storms out of the office to work on the story.

As anticipated, Janice doesn’t get access to any of the players, but she does get a tip about a 911 call for a beat reporter’s friend of a friend. Janice files the papers for the state government to release the recording, and Janice places her face in her hands as she listens to someone she doesn’t know say, “I don’t know if she’s still alive. I don’t know how to tell.” And then the responder talks through how to check for a pulse. There’s retching in the background. Janice wonders if it’s Kent or the person on the phone or someone else. There’s no story there, at least nothing another outlet hasn’t reported on. Janice keeps the call on file though. It’s the first thread in her story, in Kent’s self-destruction.

Janice wonders if she'll be able to end the story with a subtle, optimistic note about how this is only a phase. About how Kent will likely regain control of herself soon, get better for the future, for another Cup run. Janice doubts it—she hopes, but she doubts. 

Throughout the preseason, Janice keeps looking and talking to dead end sources, and Kent only shows up at half the practices, a third of the games. Each time, Kent has makeup caked onto her skin, layered under her eyes. Janice doubts the beat reporters, who have never touched a lipstick tube in their life, recognize the change, realize why Kent’s no long splotchy when she steps off the ice. Janice bets its to hide dark circles from not sleeping, swallow skin from staying out too late partying, excessive drinking.

With no other leads to run through, Janice flies down to Las Vegas and trudges into the court house. She requests to see the cases with Kent, not knowing if there even are any, and expects to be scoffed at and turned away.

Instead, the clerk hands Janice three folders and is told she needs to return the files before closing.

Janice clutches the folders to her chest and looks around for a free chair. There isn’t one, so she slides down to the floor, cracks open the first file, and starts reading.

The papers reveal Kent has been arrested three times for underaged drinking, and each time she gets ordered to rehab. Each time the judge orders her for a longer period. It matches up with the rough timeline Janice has in her head of preseason practices and games missed.

Janice goes to make photocopies and wonders what happened between Kent winning the Stanley Cup and her birthday.

In the following days, Janice reaches out to Kent, the Aces, and the NHL for comment. No one gets back to her.

Janice files her story for publication.

It doesn't end on a positive note. 

—

Halfway through the season, Kent stops showing up drunk to events and hungover to games. Hope flutters in Janice's stomach. 

Two days later, the teammate, who made the vile comments the previous year, gets put on waivers. Janice drinks to the decision. No one picks him up. Then the Aces start cleaning house. A day later, two more players go on waivers. A third gets traded. A fourth starts getting scratched every single game and eventually stops showing up to practice.

The Aces lose the next five of its home games, but Kent has gone on a point spree, racking up up one if not two per game. They don’t lose because of her. They lose because the Aces no longer have a team to support her.

Janice wants to know what the fuck is going on. She digs. She turns up a plethora of rumors all pointing the same way. The Aces started cleaning house because there were one too many assholes messing up the team dynamic. And because the team basically revolves around Kent…well. They were messing up the Kent dynamic.

Janice can’t decide whether Kent talked to the front office and told them who needed to go so she could get her life back on track, but someone sure did. Janice wonders, hopes, that all this stemmed from her story. That someone in management read her story, balked that the public found out about everything, and decided they needed to get Kent help, to figure out what was going on and to fix it. Janice doesn't know for sure, but as a reporter, she wants to believe her story did something good besides drag Kent through the coals. 

Janice wheedles press credentials to the Aces vs. Rangers game and shoves her way to the front of Kent’s press scrum. Kent had a four-point game, her first hat trick of the season. The Aces still lost, a miserable 7 to 4, but—

“Welcome back,” Janice says when she catches sight of Kent. Janice isn't sure of the reaction she'll receive, the last piece she did on Kent fresh in her mind. Kent freezes, and then flushes with pride. Janice watches the red spill out of her cheeks and run down her neck. Janice has never been this happy to see someone blush before, to see soft bags under Kent’s eyes. “Was worried about you this season,” Janice says as if her story didn't already say it all. She wonders if Kent read it. 

A few reporters grumble and elbow at Janice. She elbows right back. They can suck a dick or two. Kent doesn’t say she’s glad to be back performing to her standard, too, but Janice doesn’t need her to. She sees it in the way Kent nods and in the shift of her stance.

Kent asks, “You have a question?”

“What’s changed?” Janice wants to know. “Only a few weeks ago…” Janice trails off. She waits a few beats for Kent to fill the silence.

“It was a rough transition,” Kent admits with a shrug, “after we won the Cup. The Aces stuck with me though, got me what I needed.”

Janice follows up before any of the other reporters can interrupt. “What did you need?”

Kent shrugs.

Janice presses on. “How’s the locker room dynamic now? As the season has gone on?”

Kent’s eyes narrow, catching onto Janice’s line of questioning. “It’s good. We’ve brought in some solid, new teammates from the AHL.”

Janice grins. She fills in part of what Kent didn’t explicitly say, “Good attitudes.”

Kent twitches her lips into a half smile and agrees. “Yeah, yeah, they’ve got some good attitudes. They fit in well.”

Janice wants to reach out, place a hand on Kent’s shoulder and tell Kent she’s proud of her. But now’s not the time, and Janice doubts Kent would appreciate the gesture. So Janice gives a thumbs up and flips off her recorder, ducking out of the scrum. She needs a few more sources to corroborate the locker room’s change.

Janice beelines for Troy, one of the new kids. Fresh blood. No media crowding him. “Hi,” Janice says, stopping in front of his stall. He’s half-undressed and looks wildly concerned; he’s Janice’s favorite kind of hockey source. “Janice,” she introduces herself, “from the New York Times.”

—

The Aces don’t make the playoffs. In every post-season interview, Kent looks humiliated, but determined. “There were some issues we had to take care of this season,” she says. It’s almost a little bit coy. Janice snorts. Kent, coy?

Janice’s phone rings, and she pauses Kent’s interview video. “Janice” she says in hello, and takes a sip of wine.

“Hi, it’s Kent.”

Janice snorts wine up her nose in surprise. Tries not to cough too hard when she responds, “Wasn’t expecting you to call.”

“Yeah, well. It is the off season.”

Janice does not point out that playoffs are ongoing. Instead she says, “What do I owe this honor to?”

“I want you to write a story about women and the NHL.”

Janice feels a few butterflies start to gather in her stomach. “You do?”

“Hear me out,” Kent starts. “The NHL wasn’t ready for me,” she says, and Janice savors those words and their easy confidence. “It still has too many misogynists, and it’s not doing enough. But it’s at least starting to figure shit out, clear house, and I’m ready for some more ladies to join me.

“Two years is too long to spend as the only woman in the league—it’s fucked up is what it is. If the NHL is really trying to change, they better draft two or three more women this year. If they don’t, they’re just showing off how they’re the same piece of shit they were a year ago.” Kent pauses, and as an afterthought adds, “You better quote me on that.”

Janice does.

—

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
